IHC Esports Becomes First-Ever Mongolian CS:GO Team to Qualify for Major

The Asia-Pacific (APAC) RMR (Regional Major Rankings) concluded a few days back on 16^th April as IHC Esports defeated both TYLOO and Renegades to qualify for the PGL Major Antwerp 2022. With this, the Mongolian esports organization made history by becoming the first-ever team from the country to compete in a Major.

Not only did IHC Esports defeat two of the favourite teams that were expected to win the APAC RMR, but they also went undefeated through the LAN qualifier to win it and claim $5,000 USD (INR 3,81,780) in prize money for their efforts.

IHC Esports creates history by becoming the first CS:GO team from Mongolia to qualify for a Major

After 9z Team became the first-ever non-Brazilian lineup from South America to qualify for a CS:GO Major, IHC Esports created history by becoming the first Mongolian team to do the same through the APAC RMR.

IHC started by defeating its Asian rivals TYLOO by a '2-0' scoreline, handing them close defeats on Mirage (16-13) and Ancient (19-16). This was followed by comfortable victories against Renegades on Inferno (16-10) and Mirage (16-4), as IHC won four consecutive maps (two matches in a row) to qualify for the Antwerp Major.

Talking about how they were able to achieve this victory, 24-year-old Yesuntumur "nin9" Gantulga, in an interview with HLTV, explained that they usually compete against TYLOO with insane pings during local online tournaments, but here on LAN they felt really confident in themselves and came through with a fantastic victory.

As for Renegades, they did not know what to expect from them and they tried to watch a few demos. Due to not being able to download any of them they decided to go into the match with a mindset of just playing their own game.

Three IHC players Tengis "sk0R" Batjargal, Byambasuren "bLitz" Garidmagnai, and Munkhbold "Techno4K" Sodbayar made it into the list of top five CS:GO players at the APAC RMR, holding an overall HLTV rating of 1.34, 1.31, and 1.11 respectively.

According to nin9, the players came into the APAC RMR just hoping to qualify for the Major, but they are now pretty confident in themselves and could do some damage, "teams should not take us lightly".